Thomas Drake: You're Automatically Suspicious Until Proven Otherwise 502
colinneagle writes "RT had a very interesting interview with former NSA official turned whistleblower Thomas A. Drake, who said, 'Security has effectively become the State religion; you don't question it. And if you question it, then your loyalty is questioned.' 'Speaking truth of power is very dangerous in today's world,' he added. The interviewer pointed out that investigative journalists are labeled as 'terrorist helpers' for trying to reveal the truth, to which Drake said the government's take is 'you go after the messenger because the last thing you want to do is deal with the message.'"
Network World also has a pretty good article on William Binney's keynote at HOPE 9, wherein he revealed some technical details and a bit more background on the NSA's domestic surveillance program. Unfortunately, neither audio or video of the talk are available yet.
power corrupts (Score:3, Insightful)
But Americans have been hugely keen on giving more and more power to their federal government, so this is in inevitable byproduct. Of course there must be some government, but not one that grows without bound and attracts power hungry, corrupt authoritarians.
But hey, keep on voting for those Republican and Democrats, because that's been working out so well thus far, amirite?
Verified, and will continue (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of us already know exactly what is being stated. You really only needed to investigate the Tea Party, OWS, and the Ron Paul followers to know this was happening. Many leaders of those groups have been jailed, detained, and publicly discredited by corporate owned media.
Without the common statements regarding famous books, what people should be fearing is tyranny. Tyranny is a very short step away from where we are now. I would be a fool to state that it's everyone in Government. I would be a bigger fool to deny that there are people in Government pushing for a Tyrannical State and Oppressive Government.
Guard that 2nd amendment right people, since you are dealing with people that are armed to the teeth and have no issues killing civilians. Simply look at the body counts in the Middle East, Africa. Do so with unbiased corporate owned media, or check numerous sources.
They have become what they fought... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Security has effectively become the State religion; you don't question it. And if you question it, then your loyalty is questioned.'
Sounds exactly like the conditions that people lived in under the rule of the Nazis and Communists. The "the land of the free and the home of the brave" have become what they fought so hard against - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Heil Amerika!
Out of context (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary phrases it as though the person making the statement is stating his own position. In fact, he's attributing this position to the opposition.
It's like having a summary which says "(name): Muslims should take over the world" without mentioning that the quote is from someone who doesn't like Muslims and is attributing that idea to them, and is not a quote from a Muslim at all.
Re:They have become what they fought... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds exactly like the conditions that people lived in under the rule of the Nazis and Communists.
Nope. Anyone who uses that argument doesn't actually study history. Christians used it when they took prayer out of school, did you know that (search for 26 similarities between America and Nazi Germany)?
Really, how many of you have been stopped at government checkpoints and asked to show your papers (except when leaving the country)? Further, if you failed to supply papers, were you under threat of arrest? How many of you have had your entire families deported or locked-up because of their religions or their views of the government? Can I call the feds and report my neighbor for being a collaborator if I want his house?
Stop feeding the panic and start fucking thinking.
Bad hyperbole = bad argument.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
Guard that 2nd amendment right people, since you are dealing with people that are armed to the teeth and have no issues killing civilians. Simply look at the body counts in the Middle East, Africa. Do so with unbiased corporate owned media, or check numerous sources.
Do you honestly think that you could fight the U.S. government with any amount of weapons you as an individual, or even organized with your buddies, could ever accumulate? Were you not paying attention to stories about Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.? Or hell, for that matter, the Civil War?
I always have to laugh when I see this "We might need to fight the government!" argument people make about the Second Amendment. If it ever comes to the point where we have to have an armed revolution, your little pop guns aren't going to do diddly against our domestic police forces. The only way it would ever happen is for individuals that make up the police forces (that is, the police, National Guard, Coast Guard, and other domestic security agencies) to be on your side.
You would be "removed" before you ever got to the point where you could seriously fight the government. If you're lucky, that means you'd be shipped somewhere like Guantanamo Bay (or more likely, extraordinary rendered to some godforsaken hellhole where they torture people).
If you're going to change the government, you're going to have to do it by changing the hearts and minds of the U.S. citizenry to elect people who are willing to change the laws and give up some of the power the State has accumulated over the centuries. Not an easy task, I'll grant you, and many people believe that that will never happen. But if not, well, you're going to have to accept what we're stuck with today because armed revolution is not, nor will it ever be, the answer.
American Freedom is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just a sad testament to what GW Bush helped to destroy -- a land of the free and home of the brave. Now it's the land of the slaves and home of the caged. Don't piss off your masters or you *will* be dealt with.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:4, Insightful)
Haven't you heard? They're all in the secret FEMA death camps.
You are. If you think the US is anywhere NEAR anything that can be described as tyranny, you have no clue what tyranny actually is. The irony is that anything which weakens the US will only give nations like China an advantage, and that's exactly what they're waiting for [nytimes.com], and those aren't nations which respect anything resembling freedom or liberal democracy. Oh, I know: you'll say, "the US doesn't, either." I sincerely hope you don't get the world you wish for, because it will be one where you are far less free.
Re:And meanwhile, in TN... (Score:4, Insightful)
You really didn't understand a single word I said.
When the purges come, encouraged and led by people like you, they will not stop at just the people you yourself hate, they will continue until they meet up with you, personally. This was true during The Terror and every purge in history.
Here's your shirt.
--
BMO
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:2, Insightful)
Guard that 2nd amendment right people, since you are dealing with people that are armed to the teeth and have no issues killing civilians. Simply look at the body counts in the Middle East, Africa. Do so with unbiased corporate owned media, or check numerous sources.
Do you honestly think that you could fight the U.S. government with any amount of weapons you as an individual, or even organized with your buddies, could ever accumulate? Were you not paying attention to stories about Ruby Ridge, Waco, etc.? Or hell, for that matter, the Civil War?
I always have to laugh when I see this "We might need to fight the government!" argument people make about the Second Amendment. If it ever comes to the point where we have to have an armed revolution, your little pop guns aren't going to do diddly against our domestic police forces. The only way it would ever happen is for individuals that make up the police forces (that is, the police, National Guard, Coast Guard, and other domestic security agencies) to be on your side.
You would be "removed" before you ever got to the point where you could seriously fight the government. If you're lucky, that means you'd be shipped somewhere like Guantanamo Bay (or more likely, extraordinary rendered to some godforsaken hellhole where they torture people).
If you're going to change the government, you're going to have to do it by changing the hearts and minds of the U.S. citizenry to elect people who are willing to change the laws and give up some of the power the State has accumulated over the centuries. Not an easy task, I'll grant you, and many people believe that that will never happen. But if not, well, you're going to have to accept what we're stuck with today because armed revolution is not, nor will it ever be, the answer.
Well, don't complain when they come and get you because you choose to do nothing. And they will come to get you. No one is safe.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you mean by "anything which weakens the US" ?
Because from where I'm watching, continued abuse of the US political system by monied interests (be they civilian or military-industrial) is weakening the US, weakening it's freedoms, weakening its civil rights, and weakening the prosperity of the majority of its people.
Re:They have become what they fought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds exactly like the conditions that people lived in under the rule of the Nazis and Communists.
Nope. Anyone who uses that argument doesn't actually study history. Christians used it when they took prayer out of school, did you know that (search for 26 similarities between America and Nazi Germany)?
Really, how many of you have been stopped at government checkpoints and asked to show your papers (except when leaving the country)? Further, if you failed to supply papers, were you under threat of arrest? How many of you have had your entire families deported or locked-up because of their religions or their views of the government? Can I call the feds and report my neighbor for being a collaborator if I want his house?
Stop feeding the panic and start fucking thinking.
Bad hyperbole = bad argument.
I hate to use the words "slippery slope", but Nazi Germany didn't just spring up overnight.
When I was young, you could apply for a job without having to "show your papers" or prove that you weren't guilty of being a drug addict. We gave away the presumption of innocence in the 1980s.
When I was young you could legally listen to any radio transmission you wanted to. Again, in the 1980s, that was changed to forbid monitoring cell-phone frequencies. Since then, almost all of the public service channels in my city, state and county are digitally encrypted from critical stake-outs and investigations all the way down to garbage collection and city buses. I learned a lot about how my city works from listening to the people I pay to keep it running. This year the city took the decrypting scanners away from the local newpaper and TV stations.
When I was young, the fortified fence was what Communist countries used and America's borders were famously open.
When I was young, US armed forces were supposedly "better" than Communist/Nazi forces because we treated prisoners fairly and didn't torture them. Torture, in fact, was unthinkable, even when faced with the very "agents of Satan" themselves.
Not everything was better back then. Especially if you were black, female or gay. But if the reality didn't always measure up, at least we had the ideals. Since 9/11, the ideals have been flushed down the toilet.
It may not be slippery - yet, but I'd definitely say it's a slope.
Not new [Re:power corrupts] (Score:5, Insightful)
But Americans have been hugely keen on giving more and more power to their federal government
Sigh. No. The ignorance of history by the average American is appalling. No, this is nothing new. It goes back to the 1798 Alien and Sedition acts [ushistory.org], at least. There's nothing "more and more' about it-- you do remember the domestic spying of the 1960s and 1970s, right? Or the Kent State incident where National Guardsmen shot a bunch of students on the quad (who, as it turned out, didn't even have anything to do with the protests over which that the Guards had been called out?) Well, no, probably you don't. What is new is the large amount of push-back against giving power to the federal goverment.
There's been for the last two centuries a give and take between cries for security and the desire for non-interference; or, if you like, the battle between fear and freedom.
, so this is in inevitable byproduct. Of course there must be some government, but not one that grows without bound and attracts power hungry, corrupt authoritarians. But hey, keep on voting for those Republican and Democrats, because that's been working out so well thus far, amirite?
You're ignoring large amounts of debate and back-and-forth in order to phrase things as simple freedom-versus-evil. Even in the two-party system, the parties are not monoliths; opinions are not uniform nor black-and-white. However, if you don't like the two-party system, you might try to see if you can advocate changing the ballotting system that we currently have, which drives the politics to two parties. Try advocating approval voting, for example, which is a system that is not biased toward two parties: http://www.electology.org/approval-voting [electology.org] http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/center.html [boulder.co.us] (or any of several other methods that don't fail badly with multiple candidates).
Re:And meanwhile, in TN... (Score:2, Insightful)
Correction... *religious extremists* are evil. That term also covers the assholes who believe we should herd gays into concentration camps and let them starve.
There is nothing inherently evil about Christianity or Islam. As usual with the human condition, it's assholes that screw everything up.
Re:And meanwhile, in TN... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ron Paul and today's "libertarians" are not libertarian by the traditional meaning of the world.
We need to call them what they are: corporate anarchists. Traditional libertarians didn't believe in elevating the rights of *any* institution (public or private) to that of the individual because it is dangerous and it would be a concentration of power. These idiots believe more in the rights of corporations than people.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, a lot of public money flows to private enterprise because of the military, but there's a shit-load more money there. Communications, transportation, energy and education are all cash-cows that they're just starting to seriously milk to varying degrees.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it you weren't. A small group of irate people with zero support can cause massive problems for the federal government? So what happens when half the houses in a region go Ruby Ridge? Then you segue to Civil War status. And there we see that a group of states can indeed give the federal government a run for the money.
So did you notice the part where the federal government won in each and every case? That afterwards, there was exactly zero meaningful change, except possibly to push the pendulum even further in the direction of unfettered federal power?
As opposed to, I dunno, say, Martin Luther King, Jr.? Yeah, all of those weapons he was stockpiling sure helped shake things up. And all of those 60s hippies who were so gung ho about engaging in armed conflict really made the difference in stopping the Vietnam War. Wow, remember that bloody clash when the students at Kent State started firing back at police? Even today in, say, the struggle of gay people much much recent success to gain acceptance in society, I can't help but notice how it finally came about when they started espousing arming themselves to defend their rights.
Except... Oh yeah, right! None of those things happened! All of those fundamental shifts in how government has changed were accomplished through non-violent campaigns to win the hearts and minds of the American people.
Look, I know it's fun to romanticize the Revolutionary War, as if that's the One and Only Way to solve government oppression. Maybe you missed out on the history of things like 1) England was across the Atlantic Ocean, which posed a significant logistical disadvantage, 2) England was also mired in conflict with France at the time, and 3) England didn't have a massive arsenal of modern weaponry to use against the colonists. Yes, we won, but anyone who doesn't recognize that such an example is practically useless in today's world is an idiot.
you can still work in the system (Score:4, Insightful)
the idea is to cure our government of it's corporate disease, not condemn the whole thing. and replace it with what? no one controls a revolution. everyone suffers and what comes out on the other end can very well be worse
so, as much as i despise the corporate influence on our government, i would equally warn against the parent poster who seems a little too eager to grab his gun
think too much like the parent poster, with vicious enemies out to kill him around every corner, and this turns you not into the instigator of righteous revolution, this makes you a deluded paranoid schizophrenic shooting up a mall
Re:And meanwhile, in TN... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing inherently evil about Christianity or Islam.
Sure there is: they both require you to put non-Bayesian means ahead of Bayesian means as a way of knowing reality, and that is the root of all evil.
In the case of religions, scripture and ecclesiastical authority are the favoured non-Bayesian means. In the case of political organizations, party doctrine and ideology are the favoured non-Bayesian means.
Whenever anyone attempts to induce someone to abandon the only possible consistent way of knowing reality--Bayesian reasoning about systematic observations and controlled experiments--they are committing the most fundamental act of evil possible.
Re:American Freedom is dead (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just a sad testament to what GW Bush helped to destroy -- a land of the free and home of the brave.
Let's be honest: what every sitting president since Eisenhower has helped to destroy.
Re:NSAmerCIA (Score:5, Insightful)
Our choice nowadays is between Romney and his Gestapo, or Obama and his Stasi.
Nazi Germany or East Germany, choose your hell. Personally, I'll take modern Germany, they have more freedoms than we do.
Well sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. I'm not sure though, what the rest of the world will have to go through, while the US goes through it's Third Reich Phase.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm still waiting for someone to provide examples of Tea Partiers and Paulbots being thrown in jail or detained.
(silence)
That's what I thought. Stupid cocksuckers made a FALSE claim in order to demean the Tea and Paul supporters.
>>> It sounds like you are taking the corporate media story of the events for granted.
Uh. No. I watched videos posted on youtube by individuals like you and me showing the violence & showing the Occupy people shitting in the street because they were too lazy to walk to the public subway and use a bathroom. PRIVATE VIDEOS. Where's the "corporate" in that? Stupid ass
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much, yes actually. Because you are forgetting that all of those involve people. It's not a collection of equipment.
Contrary to popular movies or books about left or right wing dystopian takeovers, most people are 90% good. Sure, they may lie a bit. "Was I really going 10 over the limit, officer" or not report internet purchases on their taxes. The average soldier is not going to nuke a city in America with a number of relatives in it. Well, unless it's the in-laws... Same with biological or chemical agents.
Most you'll get soldiers to do is Katrina or putting down riots. Maybe targeted door kicking. Even during the American civil war, the two militaries did not directly target civilians. INDIRECTLY, sure, whole masses died. But neither would be likely to systematically commit intentional atrocities against civilians.
I was one of those soldiers. And I can tell you exactly what would happen if we were ordered to do any of the above against relatively anonymous civilians. "Uhm. The key to the bioweapons is lost... We're calling the locksmith, but he hit a deer so it'll be a while..." In the meantime, a senior NCO will be yelling at the officer behind close doors to get the situation unclustered before folks start getting shot in the back of the neck. Convince soldiers that Joe Smith is a bad guy and it's legal to kick in his door, even if it's dubious, it'll happen. Tell soldiers to nuke Kansas City because Joe Smith is having a rally on net neutrality. Or heck, even if it's taken over by net neutrality activities, terrorists or rebels. It's not happening. Don't believe me? Ask Stanislav Petrov or Vasili Arkhipov.
Re:power corrupts (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to form a party and get the message out. It's hard to do so and instantly gain the support of a third of the country, especially when you consider that the incumbents can most likely outspend you by orders of magnitude and have the bonus of voters who always vote for the same party without thinking.
Unless the entire nation completely loses faith in one of the two big parties it's extremely unlikely that any new entrant will have any chance of making their voice heard. At least not until they're willing to spend the equivalent of a mid-size corporation's market cap on their campaign.
Re:NSAmerCIA (Score:5, Insightful)
The supreme court is really the big reason to vote one way or the other.
And then some (Score:3, Insightful)
And any group who rises up will be labeled a "terrorist organization" so that when they are exterminated by the Feds in front of the media cameras, the general public, who are under the impression that the "government is always right and tells the truth", will just think, "They had it come'in." And the media will just fall in line and report about the "terrorist cell" and bring up clips of Timothy McVeigh or any other home grown group who had something against the government and committed violence.
The trouble is most Americans have no clue what freedom is. They think that as long as they can drive their cars where ever they want within the US, eat all they can, have their TV and bitch about the government to their buddies and online then they are "free". All this monitoring - like the Stasi - and the searches - electronic strip searches - are all necessary for our security and freedom.
Oh and the biggest thing that cracks me up is gun ownership. Yeah it's our right but what we're legally able to own is nothing to compared to the military. Even if we were legally able to own a rocket launcher, a F-18, a howitzer and a nuclear weapon, very very very few of us could afford it.
To quote Pris from Blade Runner, "We're stupid." We let it happen. We let the media - ALL the media - act incompetently, stupidly, and forced them via ad dollars to report the fluff and bullshit that they do now.
Re:Verified, and will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you honestly think that you could fight the U.S. government with any amount of weapons you as an individual, or even organized with your buddies, could ever accumulate?
Sure, get enough buddies, enough organization, and eventually enough military hardware and you can beat the pants off the federal government.
Do you honestly think you and your buddies could stand up against the full wrath of the US military, against unrelenting 24/7 aerial bombardment, against battalions of tanks, against biological and chemical agents, and nuclear strikes? Unless your "buddies" include major superpowers like China and Russia, you haven't got a prayer.
How long do you expect the federal government to continue to exist after they decide to use biological, chemical, and nuclear strikes in a genocidal extermination of their own cities? Which soldiers do you expect to push the button to launch a nuke at, say, Ohio? And were that to happen, do you think the rest of the world WON'T get involved? They didn't stay out of our first revolution, they didn't stay out of our civil war, they didn't stay out of Libya...
Were there to be some kind of large and violent revolutionary movement, there would be FAR more resistance from the police forces than the military. Most soldiers would probably go AWOL. They joined to _protect_ the citizens, not kill them. That's the police's job. Aside from the fact that any soldier fighting a domestic insurrection would be in violation of federal law (though I'm sure that would change.) Yes, there are some SWAT teams with tanks, but we wouldn't be facing A1M1s, we wouldn't be facing aerial bombardment, and we CERTAINLY wouldn't be facing chemical/biological/nuclear weaponry. And if we did, that is exactly the point at which we would win. Just look at recent events in the middle east.
Re:you can still work in the system (Score:2, Insightful)
guns in america result in just a lot of senseless death
and if fascism comes to america, it won't be idiots in the countryside with guns saving us from it, they will be at the vanguard of the fascist takeover of our country, led by a demagogue frothing at the mouth about defense exactly as they go on the offense
the safeguards of our democracy is civilized discourse. guns are for the warzones, not main street, despite the fact so many paranoid schizophrenics want to make our main streets warzones
and ron paul is a fool and a tool for moneyed elites and so is any one who follows him. you need more economic facts and less economic myths
Re:NSAmerCIA (Score:4, Insightful)